As a new Accounting customer, you can enter your current trial balance, along with any outstanding customer invoices owed to you and any outstanding bills you owe your vendors. Patriot uses this information to create the journal entries needed to keep your books balanced when you receive or pay money later.
Transferring your accounting data is one of the steps in getting started with Accounting. For all of the setup steps, see "Getting Started with Accounting."
Video Walkthrough
What you'll need before you start
To enter your accounting data, click the Transfer your accounting data tile in the setup checklist on the Accounting overview page.
It helps to have the following ready before you begin:
Your current trial balance sheet
A spreadsheet of your customers, if you want to import them from your previous software
All outstanding customer invoices that are owed to you
A spreadsheet of your vendors, if you want to import them from your previous software
All outstanding vendor bills that you owe
Step 1: Enter your beginning balances
Select your beginning balances date. We recommend the last day of your previous reporting period.
Enter all of the debits and credits from your most recent trial balance. You can enter them manually, or import your previous provider's trial balance report or your own CSV. For more details, see "How to Import Trial Balances."
If you have outstanding customer invoices, your total Accounts Receivable must match the total of all outstanding customer invoices owed to you.
If you have outstanding vendor bills, your total Accounts Payable must match the total of all outstanding vendor bills you owe.
Your debits and credits must match before you can continue.
Step 2: Import or enter your customers
You can import a spreadsheet of your customers or enter each customer manually. For more details, see "How to Import Customers Into Accounting." If you don't have any customers or outstanding customer invoices, skip to Step 5.
Step 3: Enter your outstanding customer invoices
Add each outstanding customer invoice, one at a time. The total of all your outstanding customer invoices must match the total Accounts Receivable balance you entered in Step 1.
Step 4: Review products and services
For any products and services you entered on your customer invoices, you can save them so they're available for future invoices. You can also add, edit, or delete products and services later.
Step 5: Import or enter your vendors
As with customers, you can import a spreadsheet of your vendors or enter each one manually. For more details, see "How to Import Vendors into Accounting." If you don't have any vendors or outstanding vendor bills, skip to Step 7.
Step 6: Enter your outstanding vendor bills
Add each outstanding vendor bill you owe, one at a time. The total of all your outstanding vendor bills must match the total Accounts Payable balance you entered in Step 1.
Step 7: Review and make adjustments
After you've entered both customer invoices and vendor bills, Patriot checks that your totals match.
If they don't match, go back to Step 1 to correct your beginning balance, or edit or add your customer invoices or vendor bills. Your totals must match before you can continue.
Once your totals match, you'll see a preview of your journal entries. Click Submit Trial Balance to finish and go to your Accounting Home page.
After you submit, you can view the following:
Your journal entries under Reports > Accounting > Financial Reports > General Ledger.
Your account balances under Reports > Accounting > Financial Reports > Account Trial Balances Report.
Your entered customer invoices under Reports > Accounting > Customer Reports > Invoice Listing.
Your entered vendor bills under Reports > Accounting > Vendor Reports > Bills.
If you made a mistake on your beginning balances and need to correct it, see "How to Edit, Void, Delete Beginning Balances."
FAQs
How many vendors or contractors can I import at a time?
You can import up to 200 vendors and contractors at a time. However, you can import an unlimited number of times.
Which vendor fields can I import?
Vendor Name (required), Address 1 (required if 1099 is required at the end of the year) and 2, City (required if 1099 is needed at the end of the year), State (required if 1099 is needed at the end of the year), Zip (required if 1099 is needed at the end of the year), Phone, Cell Phone, Email, Vendor Legal Name, EIN or SSN/ITIN, and Notes
What are the minimum fields needed in order to import vendors?
Your import file needs to include at least a Vendor Name. The Address, City, State, Zip are only required if Form 1099 is needed at the end of the year
What file types can I use?
.xls, .xlsx, .csv
How should the file be formatted?
Each vendor record should be on a single row in your file, with a column for each field you want to import. The first row of your file should include headers that label each column. Your first vendor should start on row 2.
Do the order of the fields matter?
No, the fields (columns) can be in any order from your former software. The software will match any fields automatically to your spreadsheet. You’ll need to match any fields to our fields that the software could not find a match for after you import the file.